


teeth out

by marginaliana



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25358761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: Five times Marta sort of lied to Ransom and one time she told him the bare and total truth.
Relationships: Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale
Comments: 10
Kudos: 125
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	teeth out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CypressSunn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/gifts).



**One**

Marta's first view of the house makes her shiver, a reaction that she can't hide. It's too tall, the windows too thick. The front porch is a gaping maw bracketed by iron posts as sharp as teeth – welcoming, but as a tiger welcomes a gazelle.

She knows that Harlan had the place built himself, that his hands and his sense of drama are all over this design. But somehow it feels as if the house had grown itself, at least in part. As if it had reached out of the ground in the night and snaked ivy over the foundation, moving stones into a pattern of its own devising.

For a moment, she wants nothing more than to turn the car around. Marta knows danger – how can she not, when she is what she is? – and there is danger here. Harlan can hire another nurse. Yes, he'd liked her and she'd liked him, and the pay is wonderful. But what is that compared to the way this house looks at her?

She pulls into the drive anyway, parks the car and gets out. She takes a deep breath, then walks up to the door and rings the bell.

Fran lets her in and leaves her in the foyer while she goes to get Harlan from his study. There's a scent of blood that lingers here, just faintly – the taste of it on her tongue is enough to make her hair stand on end and her mouth water. She thinks maybe it's the house, but when she walks forward and puts a hand on the banister of the stairs, it's dry to the touch. She lifts her hand again and licks her fingertips, just to be sure, but there's no taste beyond herself and the tang of wood polish.

 _You're being paranoid,_ she tells herself.

"Marta!"

Harlan's voice makes her startle, but she puts on a smile when she turns to look at him.

"Hey, Harlan."

"Come into my study," he says. "I want you to meet someone."

The scent intensifies as Harlan leads her into the study. It doesn't seem as if he can smell it – or maybe he's just used to it.

"This is my grandson Ransom," he says, sweeping out an arm. 

Marta catches sight of the person he's introducing, and _now_ she knows where the smell is coming from.

Ransom's hair is slicked back casually and he's dressed in a thin grey button up, green scarf swooping around his neck. He wears a polite smile, the kind that spoiled rich boys wear when they're meeting the help and want to pretend they're modern and egalitarian. Marta can see, behind his lips, a hint of something sharp. 

_Wolf,_ she thinks. 

They're never subtle, his kind. There are physical signs, of course – hairs on the back of the neck and on the wrists, too thick to be anything but fur. But there's also a surety in the way wolves carry themselves, an animalistic menace that's always visible. 

In his eyes, she can see the same sudden awareness of her. The polite smile stretches into a real grin as he raises his eyebrows at her. The air between them sparks as he exposes his teeth.

"Marta's my new nurse," Harlan says. He leans in towards Ransom a bit. "She's a vampire – promised to tell me all about it. Might come in handy for a new book, I think."

Ransom's smile falters a little; Marta can see the way the anticipation of blackmail opportunities fades out of his eyes. _Wolf_ and _asshole. Great._

"Pleasure to meet you," she says, holding out a hand and shaking his. It's not a lie, not exactly. It's making Harlan happy to introduce them and so it _is_ a pleasure, in a way. Still, something turns over in her stomach. It's irritating that being a vampire hasn't made it any easier not to vomit in situations like these.

"You too," says Ransom. His fingernails prick into her skin for one brief moment before he lets go.

**Two**

Ransom is lounging on the sofa when Marta comes downstairs after giving Harlan his evening medication. His legs are stretched out and hanging over the arm, ankles crossed, and his hair is a startling dark contrast against the pale green velvet. 

He is very still, and Marta has a sharp moment of absurd panic that he might be dead. Nothing but a body slowly cooling, heat leaching out into the fabric beneath him. 

Then he turns his head and grins at her, all teeth.

"I look good, don't I?"

Marta purses her lips and doesn't say anything. Ransom waggles his eyebrows.

"Come on, admit it."

"I thought you were dead for a moment," Marta says.

"So I really did look good to you," he says. He rolls over and upwards, feet landing gracefully on the floor and elbows braced on his knees. He steeples his hands together, fingers strong but the movement delicate. It's impossibly sensual; Marta can't tear her gaze away. Her mind presents her with an image of him under the full moon, running on all fours, ass up. Arms and legs furred only lightly, because he's a rich pretty-boy and probably gets it done at a salon or something.

"Come on, say it," says Ransom. "I look like hot shit."

"Like shit, anyway," Marta blurts.

He throws back his head and laughs heartily. "Oh, so you do have a bit of bite to you."

A thrill goes through Marta's skin. She wonders what he would taste like. 

_Cheap vodka marked up as expensive vodka,_ she thinks, and snorts out a laugh.

Ransom's nostrils flare. "What?"

Marta shakes her head. "I don't owe you my thoughts." 

"Don't you?" he says sharply.

Marta takes an involuntary step back and comes smack up against the banister of the stairs. It's unyielding. Ransom laughs again, but this time it's not a nice one.

"I can read them in your scent, little vamp," he says. "You're afraid."

"I'm not afraid of you," Marta says. He wouldn't dare do anything to her here in the house, with staff constantly in and out and Harlan right upstairs. He's not that stupid. 

He could get her fired, maybe, if he really wanted to. _That's_ worth being afraid of. But that's not what he meant. Her stomach churns once, then goes still.

"Hmmm," Ransom says, standing up, moving with as much grace as he always he does. He crosses the room; this time Marta stands her ground even when he looms over her. The blood smell is tangy and sharp. She breathes in. 

"I suppose you aren't," says Ransom. "Interesting."

He sweeps past. A moment later the front door closes with a hollow bang.

Marta breathes out. Her knees feel a little weak and so she stumbles over to sit down on the sofa. Here the residue of Ransom's scent is mixed with velvet, softened by the heat of his body, and the deep, woody smell of the floorboards. They feel almost sticky under her feet. 

_Get up,_ she tells herself. _Go home._

Even after her heart stops hammering it takes a while to make herself do it.

**Three**

Clack.

Clack.

Harlan had gone up to bed half an hour ago, but he'd pushed Marta to play a game of Go with Ransom so deftly that she hadn't been able to say no. Now she's watching Ransom across the table as he holds a piece to his mouth, tapping it against his lips, before setting it down.

Clack.

Marta scans the board with one swift glance and puts her piece down.

Clack.

Ransom frowns. This time he taps the piece on the edge of the table, tap-tap-tap. It sounds like a branch against a window, a bird asking to be let in.

Clack.

He grins at her, full teeth. Marta grins back, baring her own, and puts another piece down.

Clack. 

Ransom rolls his next piece between his fingers like a coin, over and under and around and back again. "How'd you start playing this?" he asks.

Clack.

"Harlan taught me."

Clack.

"But you can beat him."

"Sometimes." 

"Do you think he lets you win?"

Marta gives him a scathing look. "No." Harlan's too honest to be anything but ruthless.

"Yeah, okay." Ransom tilts his head in acknowledgment and puts down a piece. Clack. "You think I could beat you?"

Marta looks steadily at him. "You might," she says after a moment. "You probably won't, but you might."

Clack.

Ransom gives her a sly look. "What'll you give me if I do?"

The question catches her entirely off guard. "What?"

"Much more fun to play with a forfeit," Ransom says. "You get one too, of course."

Clack.

Marta thinks of all the things she could ask of him. All the things she could demand. She thinks of her mother. "If I win," she says, "you have to help me with a legal problem. Hire me a good lawyer."

Ransom's eyebrows go up, but he doesn't ask. "All right," he says.

"And if _you_ win?" Marta says. It doesn't really matter – she's better than him. She's always been better than him. But it will be interesting to see what he'll say.

"I want a kiss," he says.

The house abruptly goes silent. Marta can hear Ransom's breathing, the thrum of his heartbeat under the skin. "Why?" she asks.

"Why not?"

The house waits for her answer. 

"Okay," Marta says. "Fine." She puts down a piece.

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

The sound seems to echo in the walls, shivering over books dusty on their shelves and setting the fringe of the lamp swinging. Light flickers over marble statuettes and patterned carpet. Harlan's knife display rattles frantically. 

Clack. 

Clack.

Thump.

"Well," Ransom says. "Guess you owe me that kiss."

Marta looks down at her hand, half an inch above the piece that she'd put down in entirely the wrong place. She'd watched herself doing it, known what was happening, and still didn't stop.

"I guess I do."

**Four**

Marta has him up against the wall of the summerhouse. The moon is almost full and Ransom is verging on feral, but with her at full strength he just doesn't quite have enough in him to get away. He doesn't seem to want to, given the way his head is thrown back, mouth open, teeth gleaming in the moonlight as he moans. 

They are surrounded by the smell of late-autumn death, leaves and ivy decaying where they've fallen. Ransom's skin is warm but it tastes of cold earth when she licks his neck. His hands are clenched on her hips, fingers digging in tight, holding her close so he can rut against her thigh.

"I knew I could get you hot," Ransom says.

"You talk too much," says Marta, which she doesn't believe at all – his casual gloating voice always makes her laugh these days. Probably most of his family would be fully on board with telling him to shut the fuck up, though, and that keeps the statement from pricking at her conscience and her stomach. 

Ransom doesn't know it but he's been teaching her to lie like this, to find a nugget of truth and twist it around herself like a blanket, hiding any clues about what she's really thinking.

"Want me to put my mouth to better use?" he asks. 

Marta raises an eyebrow at the cliché. "You any good?" 

He laughs. "Better than I am at Go," he says. "And I beat you, didn't I?"

One hand on his shoulder is enough to get him moving downwards. She doesn't give him much room to move and so he scrapes his back down the splintering boards of the summerhouse, sweater rumpling up under his armpits. The rough planks catch at his hair, spreading it out around his head like a dark halo. Marta knows they're leaving evidence, though whether remnants of hair and yarn and scuffed leaves will indicate violence or sex is impossible to determine. 

She doesn't quite know what it is herself.

**Five**

Harlan is dead.

Harlan is dead and one of the family did it. 

Marta's stomach is hot with something she can't name. Or maybe something she doesn't _want_ to name. She hasn't seen the body, thank god, but she has – _had_ – known Harlan long enough to remember what every emotion had looked like on him and her imagination is good enough to let her flick through them all, superimpose them on his face over the slit throat that she's been told about. 

Had he been angry? Surprised? Defeated? Resigned?

"We have to find out who it was," Ransom says. He's pulled her outside, around the corner of the house and behind some bushes. She could push him away, could run, but the branches grab at her clothes with gnarled fingers. Ransom's fingers cup her elbow; they are gentler, warmer, stronger. He still smells like blood, but it's almost comforting now. She's had it on her lips, her tongue.

"The police—"

"They'll be useless, and you know it. A family like ours? We're a bunch of devious fuckers."

This house was full of death; Marta had known that from her first view of the place. She just hadn't expected the death to be Harlan's. Her own, maybe. But not Harlan's.

It's midday now but the sky is shadowed and the woods are dark. Someone could be hiding in there, could have snuck out like she and Ransom had done. Someone could be listening to them now.

"Why don't you want to do this?" asks Ransom.

 _I'm scared,_ Marta thinks, but she doesn't know what she's afraid of.

"You don't trust me," Ransom says flatly. "You think I did it."

Marta bites her lip. "I don't trust anyone," she says. Of course she doesn't trust him – he's every bit as devious as the rest of them.

With _this_ , though? 

He had nothing to gain from Harlan's death. Yes, he and Harlan had argued about money, about the will, but she had overheard enough to know that Ransom's anger was perfunctory. As a wolf, and a charming one at that, he'd never be really short of funds. All he had to do was turn up and throw a snarl around, and he'd get what he wanted. 

And the blood in his scent wasn't Harlan's. He wasn't scrubbed clean, he wasn't hiding his smell, and there wasn't a drop of Harlan in it. 

"All right," Marta says at last. "It wasn't you. So who was it?"

**Plus one**

"You're relieved, aren't you?" Ransom says.

The two of them are standing by the fireplace while exaggerated mourning goes on all around them. Half the family is pretending to cry; the other half is struggling even to pretend. Jacob sits in one of the straight backed chairs, hands moving swiftly over his phone, apparently oblivious to the fact that he's being watched.

He looks like even more of a trust fund asshole than Ransom had, back when Harlan first introduced them. At least Ransom had a sense of humor about himself.

Yes, Marta's glad it's Jacob. She knows it's horrible. But if it had to be one of the family, she's glad it's him. The others are assholes but they've been good to her, more or less. They all think she's gold digging with Ransom, but they've been kind enough not to say that to her face. 

"Come on, Marta, admit it."

It feels like the walls of the house are closing in, forming a shape around the two of them, protective bubble and straitjacket all in one. The warmth of the fire licks at her fingertips; the solidity of Ransom beside her is hotter still. The room smells like burning meat.

Marta nods, silent and unwilling. 

"You want to kill him?" Ransom asks.

Marta swallows. There are so many ways she could answer that, so many almost-lies. She bites down on her bottom lip; a prick of pain makes her realize that her fangs are halfway out already.

She can't lie, not about this. Vomit aside, she just doesn't want to. Maybe this house has made her what she is now – maybe Ransom's done it, maybe this has been inside her all along.

"Yeah," she says. "Yeah, I want to kill him."

Ransom grins, all teeth, and puts a hand on her waist, just out of sight of everyone else. The corner of the room curves to hide it even more.

"Good," he says. "So here's what we're going to do."


End file.
